Backward Escape
by fallen-chan
Summary: Softly, then loudly, then nothing at all. His story has always been the same until the day it simply wasn't. •ℵ• mild AU


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anyone.

**A/N:** Right. Time for a general disclaimer! All run-on sentences and improper grammar are deliberate and meant to reflect the thought process in question.

**Summary:** Softly, then loudly, then nothing at all. His story has always been the same until the day it simply wasn't. •ℵ• mild AU

* * *

Tall grass rustles in the wind, sending free-flying seeds from trampled flowers into the babbling river, where they drift along underwater until they hit the stepping stones. Naruto looks and thinks that it reminds him of the Hokage's garden back in _Konoha_, the one the _Shodaime_ supposedly coaxed life into. The damp earth looks as though it has just rained and the fine black on the rocky bank feels like mud.

It is hard to tell that men died here, just moments ago, with curses and the names of family-friends-lovers on their lips. The patch of disturbed rocks on the far bank is where he bore a man into the ground and held a _kunai_ to his throat, pinning down struggling legs. No need to immobilize the arms; they were shattered, fingers burnt and crushed. The thin reedy cry of a baby drifts from further upstream and he winces and tries to block his ears with chakra. He does not want to remember the sound of a broken man (_blood on his fingers, warm and wet, and he smiles and presses the kunai in his hands down and cuts through skin and the man is screaming and babbling until there is nothing left for him to say_) but he does anyways and he struggles to keep from being sick when he remembers the satisfaction behind the sound of a snapping rib.

One year of training. Naruto thinks, as he turns away deliberately and stomps off to find his errant _sensei_, that he has not learned much from Jiraiya in terms of _jutsu_. He has learned to gather information (_torture, he insists, because he is too young to use sex as a tool and who better to learn from than the man who controls Konoha's infiltration network_?_)_ and to kill.

He goes to sleep with the warmth of blood still on his hands and the stench of fear heavy in his nose. _("This will keep you alive" Jiraiya insists when he sputters in disbelief and throws an empty scroll at the old pervert's head. Naruto does not want to believe that he will _ever _need to know this, not even to survive the enemies that Jiraiya paints lurid pictures of in his mind. He remembers bloodlust in the eyes of a shark and the burn when his skin is shaved off and the nausea that comes with chakra loss and Sasuke's gurgle when blood fills his mouth and a choked scream; no, he thinks to himself, what Jiraiya teaches will not be what keeps him alive.)_

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

He returns to their shared hotel room early in the morning one day, when the grass is still wet with dew drops and the birds are just starting to chirp, and tries to filter the smell of _sake_ and smoke and sex from his senses. There is a creased pile of bills (_"stop stealing my money, damnit!" but Jiraiya just laughs and ruffles his hair before running off with a wad of untidily-folded yen_) on the table underneath a discarded weapons pouch and he stops just inside the room. He can think of at least twenty ways to kill right now and he thinks that at least one of them has a chance of being half-way successful and it disgusts him that his first instinct is to kill (to _live_, he tells himself at night when he cannot sleep and remembers the drunk thief who tripped and fell on his _kunai_, the Ame _genin_ who trembled and tried to run, the nuke-nin who chased after an old pervert and ran into a _Rasengan_ instead).

Jiraiya laughs when he mentions it one day, after another nuke-nin tries to collect the bounty on the head of a _Sannin_ and leaves as ashes. _Sake_ burns a harsh line down his throat and the bottom of the painted porcelain dish swims in brown and red as he sets it down. There is a dizzying electricity flowing through his veins and he thinks that if only he could capture it, harness it, he would bring Sasuke back with no trouble at all. (_He wakes up the next morning bleary-eyed and wonders why he is laying in grass but then there is water falling onto his face and Jiraiya is laughing boisterously and calling him an idiot gaki and it's an ingrained response to sputter angrily and insult the old pervert.)_

Two years of training. He realizes one day, as he sits outside the ramen stand and watches the people go by, that he is starting to recognize people in this sleepy little village. The thought frightens him and he runs far away, gathering chakra for a _Rasengan_ in his hands and staring at the swirling blue ball. It looks no different than it did two years ago, when lightening punched a hole though his chest, and he drives it angrily into a tree and screams something incoherent at the sky.

When he sleeps, he dreams of sibilant hisses and golden-red eyes and a long tongue curling around his neck as chirping lightening rips his stomach apart neatly, a gaping hole where the _Kyuubi's_ seal is. He wakes up with a scream and there is something in his wild-eyed desperation that convinced Jiraiya it is time for them to move on.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

On their slow way back to Konohagakure, they hear rumours of men in black cloaks with red clouds. His first reaction is to stay because he remembers, faintly, that there is a man with black hair and red eyes who wears such a cloak. His second is to hunt the man down, because where that man is, he thinks that Sasuke will show up, if he is just given a sign to lead the way. His third is to the kill the man himself. Naruto smiles with blind eyes and Jiraiya thinks he must have failed, because his student has not even an iota of survival instinct and he says as much. He makes the decision to stay a day or two and sees blue eyes brighten and disappears to drown himself in _sake_ because this is Minato all over again and the Ame trio before him and he is an old man now, too old to pretend that the world is a bright place and still too young to roll over and accept that there is nothing he can do to keep these children, with their bright smiles and eager eyes and pockets full of dreams and hopes and wishes, alive.

There is a kind of desperate fervor in the way Naruto trains now, in his frenzied movements as he kicks and punches clones and throws _kunai _and _shuriken_ and makes _Rasengan_ after _Rasengan_. He wishes that he knew more _jutsu _at the end of each day, hands raw and bleeding, weapons blunted, out of _chakra_. He is an easy target, he thinks, lying out in the open like this in black and orange. When he stumbles and falls and cuts his hand open and a _Rasengan_ never forms and chakra wisps over his palm instead, Sasuke seems farther away than ever.

It is times like that when he thinks it would be easier to let the _Akatsuki_ (_a phantom threat, the boy tells himself at thirteen, full of smiles and ambitions, that old men speak of to make me behave)_ find him. His three years are ticking away (_even now, he hears the tick-tock of a clock and knows his time is running out faster than the sand trickling through the hourglass, through his fingers, as he digs them into the sands of the desert around Sunagakure)_. Sasuke's three years are almost up.

He does not know how to live with the heavy weight of fear and failure on his shoulders (and he fears more than anything now, because Orochimaru is a snake and he can almost picture Sasuke being eaten from the inside-out, a snake slithering into his mouth and a hissing laugh). He sleeps uneasily and Jiraiya calls him an idiot _gaki_ more often now (_he trains and trains and trains but he never moves forward and instead falls backward)_. Naruto thinks that just once, he would like to be the hero saving the day (but no one has ever said that being a hero is so hard) but Sasuke is no damsel in distress (and neither is Sakura-chan) and he is the farthest thing from a prince in shining armor. (_He likes to forget that failure already walks in his footsteps and instead downs a dish of sake with a meaningless grin.)_

Two and a half years of training. Naruto sleeps and wakes in a chaotic routine and he wonders why it feels as though he is running in circles, chasing after something that flies a different path.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

The day they reach Konohagakure, he wakes up before dawn and watches the sun rise red in the east and he knows his time has run out (_and he is no more ready than he was the day they left, a child who made promises to the wind and sea and believed in fairy-tale ending where the bad guys always lost and the hero rescued the princess and everyone lived happily ever after)._

He pastes a smile onto his face when he stands before the gates and thinks, as he watches the _chuunin_ on duty, that he is not the only thing who has stayed the same. The thought is a mildly reassuring one (_but he knows deep down that they are all fools waiting to be slaughtered by the snake creeping through the tall grasses)_ and he speeds through the open gate.

Three years of training. Naruto tries to forget that he lives on borrowed time now (_his time is Sasuke's time and they are both running out too quickly and it hurts to think of so he pretends he never knew)_ and ignores the little voice that whispers that passing through the gate will sign his death warrant.


End file.
